I've had a few documents across my desk that appear to have a corrupted or recursive style for much of the body text:

Char char char char char char

Does anyone know what causes this and how to permanently delete this style? When I try to delete it, it disappears from the Styles and Formatting pane of Word, only to reappear later when different text is selected.

1 Answer
1

What causes this is when a person uses a newer version of MS Word, then takes the file and uses it in the older version of Word. In other words, using the new version brings in style definitions within the file that the old version doesn't understand and cannot interpret.

To fix this, you can go to the Styles and Formatting pane, select Show: Custom. IN the Style window that appears, find all instances of the char style and delete them. If you cannot delete one of them (which happens to me often), you can run a macro to remove it. Here are the directions:

Open the document

Go to the “Format” menu and select “Styles and Formatting”.

In the “Styles and Formatting” task pane, go down to the “Show” list and select “Custom”.

Locate each of the corrupt char styles in the list and click the checkbox next to its name so it is enabled

Click the “Styles” button on the bottom left of the dialog.

Locate each of the corrupt char styles.

Highlight each of the corrupt style, one at a time, then click the “Delete” button.

If any of the char styles remain undeleted, highlight the entire name of that style and copy it.

Click “Apply” to close the dialog.

You can then paste the name between the parentheses below, where it says “PASTE EXACT NAME OF CHAR STYLE”.

Copy the entire area below from before the first “Sub” to after the second “Sub”.